


Blessed by Mercury

by TopicalAmazon (Animasta)



Series: The Cycle Of Life And Death and Life [1]
Category: Drag-On Dragoon | Drakengard, NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Dimension Travel, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Ending E (NieR: Automata), Pre-Canon, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:48:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15285018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animasta/pseuds/TopicalAmazon
Summary: in the aftermath of the 14th machine war, a small group of 5 androids (and one machine, and one... lifeform...) team up with one simple, singular purpose: To save humanity.Not knowing it was them who doomed it in the first place.





	Blessed by Mercury

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is going to be a long series, split into three (possibly four) installments. Basically, this was inspired both by my own burning desire to make a fix-it fic of the Taroverse (because I want everyone to be happy! EVERYONE.), but also Clemps' analysis videos. This will be updated sporadically, but I will finish it. I WILL. I will not let my ADHD beat me!
> 
> Canon-wise, I am disregarding everything that was written post-automata... obviously, but everything else should be canon.

_”Do you know what’s going on with Zone 02, Vincent?” She asks forcefully, finally able to get in contact with her contact in Zone 02. She’s been trying to hail him for a week, but the destruction of the Bunker has made communication between long-ranges near impossible. Not to mention the sheer terror it’s caused some of the surviving YoRHa models..._

_“There’s this… tower…” He rubs his beard thoughtfully, “None of us know what it’s for, only that it was made by the Machines.”_

_“Tower?” She asks, confused._

_“It’s humongous. Probably taller than any of the ancient human skyscrapers. Sheer white. None of us can get in, either… that lock is amazingly sturdy.”_

_What was going on?_

Truth be told, she barely notices the ocean until she runs into it. It’s not surprising. Ever since she learned of the news, she’s been so distracted that she almost let one of those small, stubby machines sneak up on her. She can barely recall how long this trek was. A month? A year? Five days? The only things she’s noticed along the way are those certain remnants of Humanity that’s always interested her. A playground here, a doctor’s office there. Combing through an office building, reading some of the files that hadn’t decayed into nothingness.

Humanity…

But the ocean is where she needs to be. That’s what she was trying to get to. She remembers discussing with one of her sister models, what the best route would be. They were far closer to the Atlantic Ocean than the Pacific, but the Pacific would be a straight shot from there to Zone 02. Plus, travelling to Zone 02 through the Eurasian continent would be slightly more dangerous. The 14th machine war seems to have ground to a halt for some reason, but that doesn't mean all those machines are practicing peace.

Unfortunately, she can’t see any boats. She can’t really see all that far one way or the other, all the submerged (and half-submerged) buildings are blocking her line of sight. It was a common problem once you got to the edges of land...

“Pod, which way should I go to a dock?” She knows he doesn’t have a detailed map for this area, but he can certainly make a more educated guess than she can. Or he could just float up past the buildings and check that way.

“I believe you would have more luck travelling south.” Pod 701 responds immediately. She’s lucky to have him… One of her sisters found him on a scavenging mission in the city ruins of Toronto, alongside a YoRHa scanner model that had been cannibalized. It was destroyed as well, but she was able to fix him, as well as convince him to follow her. It didn’t take much convincing, considering he was just as aware of the Bunker’s destruction as any of them.

Turning south, she begins her search for a dock, hoping that she finds something soon… She needs to keep moving…

ACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGT

_”The tower fell apart?” She asks, confused, at the similarly confused Vincent. It’d only been, according to what Vincent told her, around for a month. If that. Was there something odd going on?_

_“Yeah, strangest thing… A strange light shot out from the top of it, and then parts of it started crumbling. I think it was because of that YoRHa model, 9S? He’d been rescued by Popola and Devola, and he was recovering for quite a while. Once he woke up, he seemed… odd.”_

_“How odd?”_

_“Well, apparently he’d lost his partner, 2B. Don’t think he took it very well… was very short with pretty much everyone at the camp.” He shrugs, “I don’t blame him, of course, but he seemed to be on a mission. As it turns out, he was… a few days before the tower blew up, he came into camp one last time. Turns out he’d gotten into to those weird floating boxes that popped up. He was goin’ towards the last one but he needed more recovery items.”_

_“So you think it was him that destroyed it?”_

_“Musta been… either him or A2, I suppose.”_

_“The YoRHa deserter?”_

_“Yeah. After the Bunker blew up, she kinda changed too. Was helpin’ Pascal, if I recall correctly.”_

_“I guess if the organization trying to catch you is… destroyed, it makes you a free woman.”_

_“True enough. Anyway, she went to one of those boxes too, so I guess it was both of ‘em that ended up in the tower. Anemone sent some scouts to check the tower out once the parts that were collapsing… collapsed, and the scout found Devola and Popola there. Dead.”_

_“Huh.” She feels… complicated, about that. She’d known her own pair of Devola and Popola models too, back in the early days of her construction. They’d been helpful, caring androids, but so many of their fellow androids hated them so fervently that during an argument, one of them died. It wasn’t long after that the other one died… Well, perhaps… if these other models helped destroy the tower, maybe it helped assuage their guilt._

_“We haven’t found the other two either. They’re probably dead, to be honest.” He shrugs, sadly, “They were good soldiers.”_

_“Well… I hope they’re in a better place now.”_

“No.” A stern, gruff faced android tells her forcefully, standing at the top of the dock, “There ain’t any. Not here, not down in Zone 53, not even down in Zone 55. So just go back to where you came from.”

“Why?” Looking around, the dock seems fairly basic. Just a cribbed together metal walkway, with some jutting out to act as the docking points. A small shack on top of the building the dock was attached to. And true, there didn't seem to be any boats, but his tone made it seem like he didn't expect any of them to come back, which... if you're running a dock with no boats...

“Why?” He laughs mockingly, “Well, why the hell do you want a boat? Gonna go ‘fishing’? Don't take me for a fool, miss.”

“I’m traveling.” She tries to say, but at his unimpressed face she continues, “I need to get to Zone 02. It’s important.”

“Zone 02…” His tone becomes slightly melancholy, “Zone 02, huh?”

Everyone knew by now. It was hard not to. She’d gotten the news earlier than most, but by the time she’d made it to the next zone, the camp she’d stopped at to gather supplies had been… well, slightly empty. Not to mention the androids that WERE there all spoke in horrified, confused tones. She knew the feeling. She definitely knew the feeling.

“Look. Let me level with you.” He grabs her shoulders and looks straight into her eyes, “The reason there aren’t any boats around is because… because a lot of us don’t know what to do. You get what I’m saying?”

“...yeah. I do.” She says, sadness permeating her words, “It’s taken me quite a while to travel to this coast, and I’ve passed through a couple zones in the way. At the beginning, it was fine, you know? The emptiness was familiar. You could just imagine a few resistance squads were going off to skirmish with some machines. By the time I got to Zone 43, however… I didn’t stop. Staying there would’ve been too much.” She doesn't know she saw more than 50 androids on her trek, and considering she stopped at 3 resistance bases... Well, even the lack of machine lifeforms didn't really make her feel any better.

“You look like you’ve been around a long time, miss…”

“Accord.”

“Ah, now I know why you seem familiar. Seen you a couple times on my partner’s coms.” He shifts, leaning against his shack, “I’m no spring chicken myself. I guess, by the time you get as old as us, you… well, I don’t want to speak for you. This is just my view, but… You had an inkling.”

“For me, it was the corpses.” She admits, “Obviously, the vast majority of humanity lived in the light. Still… If the alien invasion did happen as suddenly as they said, wouldn’t there have been some corpses? Bones? Have you ever heard of anyone finding human bones?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I always figured that was a little strange. But it was just something odd, you know? Just a strange circumstance, that could be easily explained by the length of time.” Her head droops down, “But I think I knew. I just didn’t ever think about it. No time, gotta salvage. Gotta keep the zones supplied and reinforced.”

“Yeah. I guess suicide doesn’t really appeal to me.” He admits, “It’s not the first thing I thought of, at least. We’re all trying to figure out where our place is in this world, now. Even the machines. There are so many peaceful machine settlements now. A few of the more enterprising of us are beginning to trade with them. They figure, what’s the point of holding grudges? It wasn’t like they had any choice in the matter… just like us.” He sighs, “But I’m not like that. I still look at a machine and see the stubby that killed Kyle. or the biped that killed Valentine. That’s why I’m here, and not in camp… Hurts too much to hear that people are trying to trade with em. Plus, I don’t really know what else to do but my assigned job.” His head turns towards his empty dock, and it stays there for a few seconds.

“Yeah. I left my own job to one of my sister models. I guess… I guess I’m just trying to figure out what my purpose is too. That’s why I’m trying to get to Zone 02. I wanted to talk to those YoRHa models that entered the tower and survived, and just explore. Hopefully find something, anything.” She doesn’t say what might end up happening to her if she doesn’t find anything, but…

Once he turns around, his face tells her that he understands.

“Well, I don’t have any boats. I don’t think a whole lot of em are coming back, either.” He shrugs, seemingly unconcerned about the potential lack of boats, “But I think there’s a machine village down south that’s building a boat. I don’t know what they’re planning to do with it, but…”

“Thank you.” She hesitates, before giving him a hug. He seems slightly uneasy at first, but wraps his arms around her anyway.

At this point, everyone who still desires to live needs to support each other. They don’t have any other option…

ACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGT

_”Vincent? What’s…” She hadn’t heard from him in quite a while, so to get a call out of the blue was slightly curious. Even more curious was his face… it looked broken. She can’t quite recall him ever looking so down before._

_“Accord.” His voice is rough, as though he’d just finished crying, “I… I… Well… I figured I needed to tell someone. None of us quite know… what to do, anymore. We’re all just trying to figure out… what is going on. What will go on…”_

_“Vincent? What’s the matter?”_

_“You know how I told you that I thought those YoRHa models were dead? Turns out they weren’t.” He spoke quickly, as though trying to talk before he breaks down again, “Turns out they weren’t. Apparently, their pods saved their lives. Even 2B. Those three are the only former YoRHa models that are still active in this area. Anyway. Anyway.” He coughs, and his voice becomes even rougher, “They had… they had something to tell us.”_

_“What? What did they tell you?” She couldn’t even begin to imagine. Somehow, somewhere deep in her knew… this would be Bad. Very bad._

_“Humanity… it’s been extinct for centuries. The server on the moon? That’s all it is. A server.” He shudders, with tears in his eyes._

_“YoRHa… made it up. They made up the whole thing. Wanting to give us something to… fight for.” She finishes, somewhere deep inside knowing exactly what they did, “After all… we are all built to serve… humanity.”_

_“Y-Y-Yeah…”_

Right before the machine village, she finds the body of an android. He seems to be a scanner model… if she didn’t know any better, she’d suspect the village to be the ones to do it. But it obviously wasn’t them.

They wouldn’t leave a suicide note.

“This is YoRHa model 44S, and... I can't take this anymore. Thinking about my dead comrades, thinking about our dead masters... I can't. I can't. I can't...” She recites aloud, scanning his body for material. His visor is still up, and still seems to be working, so she takes that first. Taking it off slowly, she notices his eyes… red. Red from crying. She’s seen so many of these. Not YoRHa, generally, but… so many dead corpses. Some surrounded by machines, some alone. Some too mangled to even recognize, some merely look like they were sleeping.

They were built to be used by humanity. They were humanity’s weapon, their tool. The hammer with which they would destroy the machines, send the aliens away, and allow the humans to come back. They weren’t built to be the survivors… So many androids worried about what would happen if they DID win, even when the humans came back. So many of them were programmed to do battle with machines, and that was it, so what were they supposed to do in a world without war? Without humanity?

Truth be told, that’s partially another reason she was doing… better, than many of her fellow androids. She was built to be a scavenger. Even knowing that humans are gone, doesn’t make her ‘mission’ any less important. Well… she did abandon her mission, so maybe it isn’t that important in the first place. But she has a new mission now.

She finishes collecting the materials from the scanner model and then sets off towards the village. The small village is situated on a tallish building (at least three stories above sea level), and fairly wide. It seems a little odd to her, that they would build near the water. Humans built their biggest cities near the water because cargo ships were the easiest way to transport supplies, and there was a ready made food source nearby. But machines didn't need to fish, and it's not like cargo ships were gonna bring anything to this village. She can just about see the boat they're making from her spot underneath, and it seems to be right in the middle of the village. It's fairly big, really. Would probably fit 10 or so androids, and maybe 15 Stubbies. As she climbs up the small staircase leading to the village, she can feel some of the machines glance at her... and stop moving entirely. She wasn't carrying any weapons, but...

“Hey!” A small, mechanical voice pipes up from her left and she turns to find a little stubby with… glasses painted on, “Welcome to our village, lady!” This little machine, at least, didn't seem to be scared. Though considering it was a child machine, who knew if it even knew what fear was...

“Hello there.” She greets warmly and kneels down to look at the stubby face to face, “My name is Accord. What’s yours?”

“Isis!” The small machine says excitedly, “Nice to meet you! You’re a nice android, right!”

“Yes. I was actually directed here by someone up the coast,” She points back where she came from, “I’m looking for a boat, and the man I talked to said he didn’t have any, but pointed me to here. What are you planning to do with the boat?” At that, the machines go back to their work.

“Oh! I know this one!” She jumps up, “We’re going on a… pilgrimage! I think that’s what Boris called it! We are going to sail the big ocean! It's gonna be a long journey!”

“Analysis: It’s a word used to signify a journey, usually to a place of great religious significance.” Her pod pipes up.

“Where to?”

“Um! I don’t know that part! Nobody tells me anything, because I’m a little kid! You should talk to Boris!” The machine points it’s little arm towards a machine that seems to be examining the boat thoroughly, a bigger bipedal model. He seems fairly normal from a quick glance, but the other machines working on the boat do seem to defer to him…

“Okay, thank you for your help.” She waves at the small little machine and walks over to the leader of the village, who seems to not be doing any work himself, but is directing the others from a strange folding chair.

“Hello, my name is Accord.” She says loudly, distracting him from his barking of orders, “I was told you were going on a pilgrimage… may I ask where?”

“Tch.” The voice emanating from the android is oddly deep, and oddly commanding, “Do you know I cannot move? Because an android who sought death invaded this village. He took out five of our number, and injured many more, before he became fatally wounded and left to die elsewhere.” She takes the time to look at him and she does notice one of his legs is horribly mangled. Hmm, she should be able to fix that...

“I’m sorry about that.” She doesn’t quite know why she feels the need to apologize, “Really. So many of us can’t quite figure out what to do… It’s why I’m even here. I was hoping to travel somewhere. Kinda my last hope, to be honest.”

“Tch. If you do not desire to cause us harm, it matters not where we go to. In fact, we are traveling to Zone 02. I do not know if you are aware, but many machines that have recently been booted from the network, such as us-”

“Oh? Is that what happened?” She’d been wondering about that. That made more sense than some of the other theories she'd heard.

“Tch. The Network left Earth. Before leaving, many of our number were granted freedom. None of us quite know why… Tch. We hope, that by travelling to the Tower and bathing ourselves in its radiance, the answer will present itself to us.”

“So a bunch of you are going towards Zone 02? Not just the people of the village?”

“Tch. Because we are not as one, I do not know whether there are others besides us who seek answers at the Tower. I am not even aware of the desires of those closest to me, because they may yet hide their true desires. Tch. But… I feel, deep in my heart, that traveling to the Tower is something many of us who were granted freedom from the Network will do.”

The way he talked about it, “Do you… regret, being part of The Network? Many of us androids regret what we’ve done in the war. I’ve never killed many machines myself, so I can’t say I feel the same, but… I did supply a lot of androids with weapons that killed machines.” She does feel a little bad about it, but what else was she going to do? It was either that, or allow androids to be killed because of shoddy weaponry.

“Tch. Androids, for all that you are more advanced than us,” She’s surprised he would admit that so easily, “Your kind is so easy to understand. I can’t regret being part of the Network. Am I glad that we are now free? Tch, yes. Our emotions are not so easily understood. I cannot regret actions that I, as a singular machine, took while part of the Machine Network. I was many, but now I am only myself.”

“Androids don’t really have that luxury, huh?” She smiles sadly, “We all had the opportunity to desert and abandon the war. To realize that humans weren’t alive.”

“Tch. Perhaps.” For as much as machine faces don’t change, she can clearly see his view of her change in his eyes, “Perhaps… But I cannot see the logic in the emotion of regret.”

“Regret is… pretty useless, huh?” She chuckles, before shaking her head, “I think we’re getting distracted. I came to ask what you were using your boat for. And you’re going to the same spot I am… Is there room for me?”

“Tch. Of course. Not all of our number are going, after all. I would very much appreciate if you could gather some of the information we are missing. Tch. When we left the Machine Network, many of us lost many of our… memories. One such issue is an up-to-date nautical map. None of us are quite sure how best to get to Zone 02… Do you think you could find that for us?”

“Okay.” She smiles easily.

ACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGTACGT

_”Ma’am, you have another transmission from Vincent. Do you accept?” Her pod asks again, in the same damn intonation as the last 30 times…_

_“No.” She says easily, and her room falls into silence. It’s been a week since she got that last call from Vincent. She wonders what he wants to talk to her about. Probably some more information about… what happened to YoRHa. About… what happened to Humanity. About… what happens now. Who knows. Maybe he's calling because he's running out of materials... haha._

_So many androids are asking that now. She knows there’s been at least 3-4 meetings, within her small organization, all of them… presumably about one thing. What do they do now. If she had any idea herself, she’d have gone._

_But she doesn’t. Not a single inkling. She hasn’t left her office, since calling the meeting with a few of her subordinates. She can distinctly remember the looks on their faces, when she told them that information. Shock. Horror. Fear. So much fear. So much… sadness. She could barely hang around the others before retreating back to her office and barricading the door._

_Considering all of them were her sister models, it gave her an insight as to how she probably looked when Vincent informed her of the news._

_A knock at the door. Probably 31. She’s been quite insistent, lately. She seems to be taking the news well enough… Or she’s trying to keep working, keep working, so that she doesn’t have to actually consider anything. She gets that. Working to forget is probably healthier than what she's doing._

_“06, open up! Right now!” This voice definitely WASN’T 31. 31 wasn’t this… angry, ever. Despite herself, and her utter disinterest in actually listening to anyone talk at all, she slowly straightens up out of her chair, trying to stretch her circuits into proper shape. She’s been sitting in the chair so long, she can feel her legs quake slightly as she walks towards the door. Opening it, she sees-_

_Ouch!_

_“Ma’am!” Accord model 13 says tearfully, hand still raised from the slap she just gave. She rubs her face gingerly, staring at her sister model, who had the look of someone who expected better of her._

_“13? What’s the problem?” It’s odd, she’s never really had a personal connection with 13. She was one of the ones who was usually leading the salvage missions, and she often sent her on the more dangerous treks. Therefore, she was rarely, if ever, on base. Of course, considering she hadn’t personally sent any missions in a week…_

_“I’m sorry. I just…” She blinks, trying to get rid of the tears, “I don’t want to see you waste away, 06. You’re our leader… Not only that, but you’re our friend. I just…”_

_“I’m sorry.” She says tonelessly, not feeling especially sorry at all, “Looking at everyone’s faces, they…”_

_“I know. We’re all… like that. But you’re… you’re better than that.” 13 nods quickly, “Please. You can't let this be the end.”_

_“What do you want me to do? I’m having a hard time pretending like our little organization is worth anything…”_

_“Then leave! 31 can take over… We just want to see you back… Well, not to normal. I guess none of us will ever be ‘normal’ again. Just… I don’t know. I want you to find something worth chasing.” She sighs, tears still falling, “Please?”_

_“I’ll… think about it.”_

“Miss Accord! Miss Accord!” A familiar, childish voice wakes her up from her restful slumber, “Look! We’re at the Line!”

They’ve been on this boat for… weeks. Truth be told, for a bunch of machines with various, inconvenient arm sizes, they built it pretty well. Not only well, but less uniform than she would’ve expected for machines. They even painted it, hiding the slightly hideous underside with a bright, pink color. They may have been booted from The Network, but that couldn’t have been more than a few months. Once she showed up, they even built her her own cot. Not that it was comfortable, considering they had limited space… Still, it was extremely touching.

She had been expecting to go crazy by this point, but the machines have been oddly entertaining. Considering that a majority of these machines were missing a lot of memories, she found herself in the role of teaching them. About the ocean, about the sky, about how gravity works. She's even told them stories about her job, which always seemed uninteresting to her, but the little machines seem to have gotten enjoyment out of it. Plus, with Boris, she often discusses future plans. What he and his village plan to do once they pray to The Tower, or what she plans to do after finding the YoRHa androids. He even asked her if she would perhaps come with them, to their new village, if these YoRHa androids can't help her.

“Oh yeah? Lemme see.” For all her life, she hadn’t seen the half of the Earth lit by the sun. She was always busy, collecting salvage and directing others to collect more salvage. Plus, she's seen the lit sun from communications with her various contacts in the light side of the sun, so why would she ever need to go herself? But this, the turning point between Kingdom of Night territory and Kingdom of Day territory? She'd always been curious about that. And...

Wow. The color is beautiful. She’s read plenty of stories that involved ‘dusk’ or ‘dawn’, when the Earth was still rotating, but she’s always been a little skeptical that the sky could really be that color. The beautiful orange color, beaming down on the small, machine boat… It was...

“This is pretty! Right!” Isis speaks up, even peppier than usual, and she can’t help but nod down at her little pal, “I’m glad! I got to see this, I mean!”

“Yeah. I wonder… did you know that humans, when they were still alive, got to see this sky every day?” She sits down on the ledge and wraps her arm around Isis, “Crazy, right?”

“Wow! That’s awesome! Miss Accord, you sound sad!” Hah, leave it to emotionless machines…

“I suppose. I accept that humanity is gone… I’ve never seen a human in my lifespan, even. But I can’t help but wish…” She sighs, “Maybe I’m being naive. We were built with the desire to serve humanity, after all, even after all the humans were gone. And it’s been a long time… I was activated more than 2000 years ago, and all the androids I’d met THEN had never seen a human. Maybe I just need to get over it…”

“Miss Accord! You are the best android! You can do anything!” Isis insists, “Please don’t be sad! Miss Accord! I want you to be happy!”

She wishes it was that easy. Still, maybe if she doesn’t find anything in Zone 02… Maybe she can be useful for someone anyway. She sees Boris, leg now fixed, staring into the horizon. He doesn't look that impressed with the dusky color, but she can tell he's excited for their journey to come to a close. With him, and Iris... Well, maybe it would be better for her not to find anything. To live with her new friends, to help them navigate this strange, new world of peace. Plus, it's highly unlikely that those YoRHa androids actually tell her anything useful.

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> Zone 02 is basically where Nier: Automata takes place. Vincent is, of course, the weapon guy in the resistance camp. Also, if anyone's interested in betaing for me, it would be greatly appreciated. I've never done a series this long before (I estimate 16-17 chapters for this, and this is only the first of four), and I will need all the help I can get :P


End file.
